Ice Age
by rgm0005
Summary: By unleashing forces he couldn't comprehend or control, he defeated the unbeatable and slew the immortal. It was the only way and he didn't regret it. But to all things, there is a price. He thought this one would be his death, but instead he found himself falling down the rabbit hole. It's said that time changes all things. Does that include heroes, as well?
1. Empty-0

Wrote this for my friend Surarrin and it sort of grew from there. In case it needs to be said, I don't own Harry Potter or the Dresden Files.

**Ice Age**

**Prologue**

So it comes down to this, I thought, staring into the darkness of the Veil.

I glided up the steps, musing over the whispers coming from it, loud enough for me to notice but not enough to understand anything that was being said. It made me wonder about death; what it would be like and if it'd hurt and just what it all _meant_. Perhaps it was a bit late to start now, when my own was so swiftly approaching—but then, I suppose it wasn't unusual for it to fill one's thoughts in such circumstances.

A part of me craved answers, feared the unknown that I'd soon be facing. But the rest of me was…accepting. I'd known this was coming for a long time, had chosen this path myself, to face my own death on my terms and greet it for what I believed in—for who I believed in. I was…not happy, but ready. It was just the next great adventure, Dumbledore had said.

I exhaled slowly through my nose and turned away from the Veil, taking a seat on the steps leading up to it and facing the door to the Chamber, hands on my knees.

"They'll be here soon," Hermione said, nervously checking the spells they'd laid around the chamber for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was an amazing piece of magic, something only possible with what seemed like endless days of careful effort—and the fact that we held most of the Unspeakables under the sway of the Imperius. The rest, well, they'd been on our side to begin with.

I would have liked to have seen the look on Voldemort's face when he'd realized that in all that time he'd been searching tirelessly for us, we'd been hiding right under his nose. How long _had_ it been, actually? The downside of using Time Turners so much and never going outside—the days just seemed to blend together. Or had any time passed at all? For all I knew, it was still the same day we'd first entered.

It didn't really matter. As long as we were prepared in here and our allies were ready outside, things like what day it was didn't matter—whatever the calendar said, it was the End.

There were just a few things left to do and then it'd all be over.

"You ready, mate?" Ron said, hiding his apprehension well. He was afraid, as was only logical given the circumstances—but he was also being brave. He stood here beside me, knowing what it meant.

"Born ready," I said, smiling at the two. Ron and Hermione had been with me through it all and had stuck with me all the way to the end—that is, right here. We'd had our ups and downs, our fights, had even stormed away from each other more than a few times, but it didn't matter because we were best friends. We'd endured the hard times together, fought together, and had shared both happiness and pain. I would have taken the Killing Curse for either of them in a heartbeat and died gladly, knowing I'd kept them alive.

Except…

"Can you come here for a minute? Both of you?" I said, and though they lifted their eyebrows and exchanged a glance, they approached, stopping a step below me. "You know I love you guys, right?"

"Oh, Merlin, Harry," Ron suddenly sighed. "Now's a hell of a time to start feeling sentimental. They'll be here any minute."

Hermione punched him in the shoulder, but I was pretty sure Ron ate her weight in food every day and if he so much as twitched I didn't notice.

"What he _means_ to say, is we love you too," Hermione said, crouching on the steps. "This is really it, huh, Harry?"

Ron scoffed.

"I don't see what the big deal is," He said. "We know from Harry's stone that there's _something_ waiting for us and whatever it is, we'll face it together. So it's no problem, right?"

I laughed.

"You're absolutely right, Ron. There's nothing to be afraid of," I said, putting one hand on Hermione's head and the other on Ron's shoe. "See you on the other side?"

As I began that last sentence, I pulled my hands away—and as I finished, they vanished, pulled away by the coins I'd turned into portkeys and placed on them.

I closed my eyes for a moment, simultaneously happy and sad to see them go. I could die for them, but couldn't let them die for me. Not when I could do this alone.

And now, I _was_ alone. They wouldn't make it back in time—and even if they did, I could feel the Ministry trembling as the defensive measures kicked into place, preventing Apparition or Portkeys in or out. The Order would be cutting off other means of escape and soon the Ministry would be completely severed from the outside.

Good. I'd timed it right. It wasn't hard when you could cheat time, but I was glad it had worked nonetheless—I'd half suspected they might have caught on amidst the temporal mess we'd made.

The people upstairs were trying to lock me in here with them, but little did they know that I had locked them in with me.

I took a deep breath, smacked my cheeks, and opened my eyes again. I could hear the spells we'd laid on the lift in the distance, telling me which floor it was on and how swiftly my end was approaching. A part of me itched to use a time turner, delay this just a little longer—but I held off the urge. I'd had more time than I should have—more than I'd needed, really. I couldn't and wouldn't run from this any longer.

I reached into my pocket, fingers brushing over the stone as I turned it. It was only recently I'd acquired the Hallow…for whatever recently meant, given what I'd been doing. But in a way I was glad. I'd avoided using it more then I'd needed, restricting myself to using it to prepare for this except once on that first day I'd had it—and now.

All at once, they appeared. My parents, Sirius, Remus, Dumbledore, Tonks, several of the Weasleys, more. My friends and allies—the lost. I didn't say anything and neither did they; everything I'd needed to tell them, I already had, and vice versa. That wasn't what I summoned them for now, either—I didn't need assurances or kind words or anything of the sort. I _was_ ready. So instead, I nodded once, a lump in my throat.

It was a goodbye.

It was a hello.

They vanished but I knew they were still watching over me.

I drew my wand as the lift reached the bottom floor, holding it loosely in my hand, elbow on my knee as I lounged on the steps. I heard the lift start to rise again, but it didn't matter—he'd have gone down first, for something like this.

A minute later, the door opened and I faced my destiny.

"Good evening, Tom," I said.

The Dark Lord Voldemort stepped into the room, walking towards me with an odd grace that didn't match his appearance. His red eyes swept the room, taking everything in—and after realizing I truly was alone, settled back upon me. Behind him, others entered—Death Eaters, not even bothering with the masks and cloaks any more. I knew most of them—the Inner Circle and a few others that had reputations. Everyone important.

Good.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort said, finally. "Come to face me at last?"

I'd had a lot of time to think about this moment—about how I wanted it to go down. I'd considered a speech—had even tried writing a few on the side—detailing all of his crimes. But…we both already knew about them, so there wasn't really any point, and I wasn't very good at it besides. I'd considered saying something witty, bantering like in the climax of a movie, though I wasn't particularly good at that, either. But it seemed like I should say _something_, considering everything that had happened, everything he'd done. But I guess the more I'd thought about it, the more I couldn't help but think—if I had him here, had this chance, then what I would want to do was this.

I activated the trap we'd set without another word.

That first moment was fairly anticlimactic. It was the sum of all the work we'd put into this, countless spells set up to activate at exactly the right moment, unravelling thousands of years of protections, triggering key points in the right order—it wasn't _difficult_ spell work, but it was detailed, exact, flawless, and enormously complex…and all of it happened, as we designed it to, without the slightest bit of light or noise.

Then the Department of Mysteries started coming undone.

Voldemort's eyes widened as the secrets held within the bowels of the Ministry were let loose, his wide eyes meeting my own in that brief moment. I smiled grimly as I felt him touch my mind, but I didn't fight him. I let him in, let him see what he was facing.

_I can't beat you Tom,_ I thought, knowing he could probably hear. _You know that as well as I do. You have decades of experience on me—and even if you didn't, even if we were the same age, you would still probably be better than me. So I'll tell you what you wanted to hear. You're stronger than I am. You know more spells, have more experience, understand magic better than I do. If we fought, you'd win on a good day or a bad day or any day in-between. I can't defeat you like that, Tom—I can't fight you and I especially can't fight you and a hundred of your friends. _

_But I can beat you like this and I will. So die._

The Chamber that was always kept locked was ironically the first to open and the power the Dark Lord knew not came rushing out. It was light and heat and a million sensations—the light in a woman's eyes, rain on skin, a hand in my own, and more pleasant things besides. All the joys of love.

And all the terrors of it, too. All the sacrifices and pains. That light washed over us and flayed our skin, charred away our flesh, crushed our bones, and obliterated us, writing on our flesh the agonies and tragedies committed in the name of love. I think I may have died. I think I may have wanted to.

Then we were standing where we had been before, the Time Room's destruction having rewound things—as expected. The final failsafe of the Department of Mysteries—anything big enough to destroy anything dangerous would unleash the forces of time, trapping the destruction within a loop until something could be done about it. It was the last defense and the hardest to deal with—the one they'd worked on for so long. The spells they'd laid continued to activate, in careful order, the spells triggering even through the reversal of time. It was a complicated piece of work, only possible thanks to the research done in the Department of Mysteries; spells that did not activate merely _on_ time, but _through_ time, responding to changes.

The Space Chamber collapsed and suddenly they were floating in air, distance and volume shifting, cast askew. This time, Voldemort reacted, raising his wand. I saw him try to apparate, try to escape—try and fail. The Locked Room opened and we died again. Then we lived, back in our original positions—standing on the ground or, in my case, seated.

This was it. It was almost time, now—three loops, we'd been sure, and then the end. Deal with the safety measure in the Time Room by opening the Locked Chamber. In the opening provided by the loop, set off the Space Chamber, the spells within setting off alarms, activating the emergency signals in the Time Room again—but it was already responding by looping the Locked Chamber. Stretched it its limit, it just need one last push, here on the third loop.

This time, Voldemort didn't try to run. With eyes wide with hate and fear, with the knowledge that all his attempts to escape death were meaningless now, he faced me. His Horcruxes were gone, but for his snake upstairs that would fall with the rest of the Ministry—and for me. This was it and we both knew it.

His expression twisted into something even uglier than normal, trying to convey an emotion I doubted even he understood, and with a wordless scream, green light leapt from his wand even as red leapt from my own on reflex. Time slowed, literally, as the Time Room tried to compensate for what was happening and began to falter under the combined assault. I watched as our spells burnt through the air like I was watching a candle melt. Behind me, working through the slowed time we'd predicted, the Veil unraveled at the seams, the archway crumbling, until all that was left was a two-dimensional door in space. It lingered for a minute and then shattered like a pane of glass just as the Space Room fell again and we started to rise from the ground.

Suddenly, there was a force against me—a terrible suction that I felt not just on my skin but down to the roots of my being, like someone had sunk a hook through me and was trying to pull me back into the hole in space that had been left by the Veil. The safety measures, stretched to their limits, began to fail erratically, patches of space suddenly resuming normal speed around me, stone shattering and being sucked into the hole I'd made in the bowels of the Ministry. The ceiling began to bend and sink as the force tore the room apart and reached for the floors above.

The Ministry began to collapse in a storm of motion, papers and pictures and desks and people swirling around us in a storm. I heard screams of terror and pain and heard them fall abruptly silent as they passed over the edge, but I couldn't so much as turn my head to look at them. They were dead, though, Sirius had proved that—the innocent and the guilty alike, dead at my hand for the chance to stop this. Sometimes, people and objects were trapped in patches of slowed or looping time, but it was only a delaying measure, would only buy them a few more minutes until they failed.

Until mine failed.

But really…it was oddly beautiful, in a frightening way. The lights glittered stunningly in the places where time was slowed, sparkling across glass and stone. From within my patch of slowed time, everything was happening in fast-forward, but it was like being in a tornado of light and sound and motion. Terrifying and exhilarating.

Three floors of the Ministry collapsed and were devoured and then time resumed its normal speed. As the magic of the Veil unraveled the time around me a moment before unleashing Voldement, I was suddenly falling backward absurdly fast—but it didn't keep the Killing Curse from sticking me. I felt the magic wash over and through me, but it didn't really matter when I was a few feet from Death's literal door anyway.

Odd that I could still see, though. I saw that my curse had hit Voldemort in turn, ripping the Elder Wand from his hands and sending it careening towards me. I saw the Locked Room break again, light spilling out and over and through us even as the Time Room finally gave out completely. The rush of light and force and heat swept by us in a storm, carrying the broken remains of the Time Room and the rest of the Department.

I felt the cold hand of Death dragging me back into the dark, the sands of Time upon my skin, the weightless vastness of Space, a cascade of emotion and thought, and half a dozen things that were inexplicable even with magic—but more than any of them, I felt what Dumbledore had described as a force that was at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature.

And then I felt the Elder Wand touch my hand.

**XxXXxX**


	2. Cold-1

**Ice Age**

**Cold 1.1**

I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling and wondered if I was dead.

Then the pain hit me and forced a groan of discomfort from my throat. Depressingly, I had enough experience with injuries that I could make pretty accurate guesses as to what the causes were—cracked or broken bones, burns, and a few other things. I gave a moment's thought to being in hell, but no—I was pretty sure I was alive.

It took a moment for the implications of that to really sink in.

I was alive, I realized. How? The Veil, the Killing Curse, and the Department of Mysteries collapsing should each have been fatal on their own. Together? I should have had about as much chance of God descending from Heaven to rescue me as I did of surviving on my own.

And yet here I was. Slightly worse for wear, but almost certainly alive.

I laid there for a minute, just staring at the ceiling. Soaking in the revelation that I was still around and kicking. Honestly, it felt kind of shitty, physically, but that was just my body whining—I'd spent months facing the certainty of my own death and here I had somehow…well, not died. I could have a life, I realized belatedly; live beside my friends, get a job, get married, have kids, do…something besides die. All those things that sound really amazing when you're faced with the knowledge that you'd never get a chance to do any of them—I had a chance to do them.

Go life.

I took a breath, winced, and then had to chuckle when I realized that when Hermione asked how I was doing, I'd be able to say it only hurt when I breathed.

Hermione, I thought suddenly. Ron. The others. Had they saved me somehow, brought me to a safe place to heal? Maybe Mungo's was still being watched by whatever Death Eater's hadn't been at the Ministry; clean up could take a while, so laying low was probably the right choice.

Except, if so…why was I still in pain? Had I been hurt that badly?

I sat up, though I had to pause about half way up to take a breath and muster the will to go the rest of the way. I blinked once and squinted, trying to make out the room I was in without my glasses. I didn't have much luck picking out details, but I did see a small pile near the bed I was in that looked like it might be my belongings. Taking another bracing breath, I swung my legs out of the bed and onto the ground—and promptly collapsed onto the ground the moment I tried to stand on them.

I closed my eyes, controlling my breathing. It hurt, sure—but it was no Cruciatus Curse; the mantra I repeated to myself whenever I was forced to face one agony or another. The real issue was that my legs just weren't going to support me, which was rather embarrassing, but no matter. I pulled myself across the wooden floor to the pile, a wordless growl rising in my throat at the pain from my legs. As I got close, I noticed that my things had been neatly organized; the remains of the clothes I'd been wearing was folded and placed on the bottom, the sack I'd taken to carrying my belongings in on top of it, two wands lying parallel beside it, and my broken glasses in front.

It was the wands that captured my attention. One, of course, was mine—eleven inches, Holly, Phoenix Feather, all that. I fingered it for a moment before moving my hand to the other, longer wand. The Elder Wand.

Maybe surviving apparently-not-certain death was making me slow, but it took a moment for me to understand what that meant. With the Cloak in my pack, the Stone in my pocket, and the Wand here, I had them all. The Deathly Hallows united for the first time.

I was the Master of Death.

I rolled it between my fingers, musing. I'd never really given the matter any thought before; beyond knowing Voldemort had the Elder Wand and that it made him even _more_ unbeatable in a duel, I had concerned myself much with the last of the Hallows. Bringing all three together had never really been my goal, but it seemed to have worked out that way.

I gestured with it towards my face and casually conjured a new pair of glasses, bringing the world back into focus just as the door opened.

The woman who walked into the room—the one who had probably done all this for me to begin with—was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. Fair white skin, dark hair that hung loose, and pale green eyes, she managed to look stunning even while wearing a dirtied, worn tunic dress. Which was saying something, especially since she was standing in what was apparently a one room wooden hut of some type. Her eyes widened when she saw me on the floor and she quickly rushed towards me with a gasp.

Before she reached me, I put the pieces together and got 'Muggle.' Well, actually, I got 'Muggle?' because unlike most wizards, I'd spent enough time around normal people to see this house and see the way she was dressed and start getting questions. But there wasn't enough obvious weirdness about her or this place for me to assume she was a witch, which meant she was _probably_ a muggle—which meant casting magic in front of her would break the Statute of Secrecy.

On the other hand, I was in a lot of pain and waiting for her to leave would be annoying, so I didn't really care—and I could always Obliviate her, if I had to. Besides, I'd reduced the Ministry of Magic to a hole in the ground; they probably had bigger things to worry about right now.

I murmured the words, not really needing to but not wanting to take chances with a healing spell, especially an advanced one. I was gladdened to see that it worked in my hands as well as it had worked for Snape, and I immediately felt my wounds begin to close. The woman abruptly came to a halt halfway to me, eyes widening as her mouth dropped open. I had expected to need to cast the spell three times, but with the Elder Wand, my wounds completely healed in one and I slowly rose to my feet.

"Thank you for all your help," I said, glancing down and tugging on the cloth that had been wrapped tightly around my chest. "It was you who saved me, wasn't it?"

She hesitated before replying in a language I didn't understand, though I saw her glance to the side and when I followed her eyes I saw what seemed to be a crudely made sword leaned haphazardly against a corner of the house. When I did nothing but raise an eyebrow, she tried again. It was odd—occasionally, I thought I heard words I could somewhat understood, but it was only enough to make me try to understand the rest and fail miserably. I spared the weirdness of her possessing a sword of all things some thought but couldn't say I was afraid of it and she didn't go for it besides.

I focused on her instead, frowning as I looked at her face. I hadn't given it any mind when I first saw her, but she _looked_ a bit odd, I supposed. No, odd was a mean way of saying it. Exotic? I'd thought she was European at first, but there was something I wasn't familiar with in her…what? I couldn't put my finger on it. The color of her skin? The shape of her face? I wasn't sure.

Either way, she didn't seem to speak English. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to have wound up somewhere odd. After everything that had happened in the Department of Mysteries, if I'd just been blown to a foreign country I'd have gotten off unbelievably light.

Still, it made thanking my rescuer difficult. Even if I'd have to make her forget all this, I wasn't such a heel that I'd leave her with nothing when she'd gone to such lengths to help me—especially since it didn't look like she had much to give to begin with.

I could turn this tiny house into a mansion, go Cinderella and give her beautiful dresses and such, but that'd draw a lot of questions. I'd have to adjust a lot of memories to make it work and I'd probably get in trouble—though, then again, given how I'd shoved the entire Ministry down a hole, maybe not. I doubted any one was in any condition to slap my wrist, right now, and if they were it wouldn't be for this. Still, it was probably too blatant and, worse, probably wouldn't help her much, on its own.

Nothing blatantly magical, then. No animated servants, transfigured houses and clothes, or unsubtle potions, but…yes, perhaps simple was best, here. I could give her money. Not _normal_ money, of course, since it could easily be revealed as frauds, but there were other things that were valuable.

I gestured towards my chest and the cloth bound there unwound in a second. Grabbing it with my left hand, I took a breath and focused. I _should_ be able to do this—I'd seen Voldemort _conjure_ the stuff and I had the Elder Wand, so it shouldn't be difficult, right? That in mind, I gestured again and it dissolved, falling apart into hundreds of pieces of pure silver. I lifted an eyebrow at the large pile and at the easy the Elder Wand had created it, but nodded to myself. I wasn't sure what the price of silver was in the world at the moment, but it had to be _something_. Just in case, I multiplied the coins several times, making the pile grow with the clicking sound of the rubbing of metal. It grew large enough that my rescuer stumbled back and away from it with wide eyes, looking stunned, though whether at the amount or at the way it was made, I wasn't sure.

Still, I took that as a good sign and stopped, leaving about thirty or forty thousand coins on her floor.

I gestured from my bare chest to the coins and then to her, bowing my head slightly in an attempt to convey my thanks. When she didn't react, I repeated the gesture until she gave a shell-shocked nod.

Looking down at myself, I saw the dried stains on my chest and siphoned them away with a silent spell, leaving my bare chest clean. I looked at the plain trousers I was wearing, likely another gift from my rescuer. Taking my other wand and my sack, I looked at the ruins of my robes, took out the Resurrection Stone, and was debating whether I should repair them or just transfigure new ones when I heard the clattering of coins.

I turned towards the woman, watching as she crossed them to approach me, grabbing my hand with both of her own and speaking to me. I couldn't understand a word she said and I was pretty sure she knew that, but her tone conveyed what her words couldn't—she was pleading with me, begging for...something. Something that made her all but ignore the silver on the floor, after she got over her initial shock.

I hesitated for a moment before conjuring a tunic instead of robes and making myself some plain boots and, giving her a nod of consent, I let her pull me towards the door.

As the door open, I was forced to squint at the sudden light, blinding me for a moment—and then the moment passed and my eyes widened in shock as I began to realize what I was looking at.

I nearly stumbled out the door, feeling numb as she pulled me out the door. I looked around, paradoxically soaking in everything around me and barely seeing it. The town, the buildings, the way the few people who were outside were dressed, the general state of the tools they were using—

I shut my eyes.

Bloody Hell. Was I ever not in Kansas anymore.

I tried to calm my suddenly pounding heart, tried to tell myself that I shouldn't make any assumptions or accept the worse yet. It could be a coincidence—I could have been thrown to some tremendously out of the way place in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere like…not Africa, since they didn't look it, but…some Third World country, maybe?

But…it was hard to believe it. Now that I was faced with evidence that something had happened, and given the Time Room and the broken Veil and the, dare I say it, Power of Love, it was oddly easier to believe the worse than believe I'd walked away as untouched as I'd first thought.

Which meant that I was fucked. Well and truly, absolutely, positively fucked. From the front, from the back, upside-down, and _sideways_. I may, in fact, need to invent an entirely new _word_ to describe the extent to which I was currently screwed.

The town I was in looked like something out of the pages of one of Hermione's history books—all wooden buildings and straw roofs. What was the word for that? Thatched? Thatched roofs. I saw a blacksmith—as in, I could see it, because most of it was outside—and from there I could see what looked like crudely shaped tools that I'd briefly thought were made of steel before recognizing the darker metal as iron. The items around it, mostly weapons, seemed hurried and new while the forge itself seemed badly damaged, but I barely noticed that before turning my gaze elsewhere—to the people.

I'd glanced over the clothing of the woman who'd rescued me, just noting that it was somewhat dirty and worn. When I noticed how much better it seemed then the clothes everyone else had, I paid more attention. They weren't just dirty or worn—they seemed like they'd been handmade and most of them in the same styles and materials. I didn't notice much difference in color or design, either. Turning to the people _wearing_ the clothes, I saw cuts and bruises, callouses and hard muscle, and deep-set tans. Though pretty much everyone seemed to be wearing odd-looking hats, I didn't see a _watch_ on any of them. Or glasses. Or much of anything else, besides an occasional handmade necklace or something.

Of course, that might have been because the whole town couldn't have contained more than five hundred people. Probably not even half that, realistically, with a pretty huge chuck of them gathered around something in the streets—the same thing the woman holding my hand was pulling me in the direction of, for all that I felt numb.

As we got closer, people quickly took notice of us and moved out of the way. For a moment, I thought I was the cause, but while I was given a lot of glances, most were directed to the woman by my side. Respect? No—fear? Suspicion? Disgust? Something else?

Either way, they got out of our way and revealed the corpse on the ground.

It probably said something that the sight of the corpse barely affected me. Part of it was the general shock I was in, sure, but it was more than that—once you've seen the leftovers of Death Eaters terrorizing a town or the results of Dementors being unleashed in a Muggle city…

It was just another body. I didn't really _feel_ anything looking at it, though I felt bad for _not_ feeling anything. Maybe if it had been someone I'd known, but the idea that a person had died or been killed? In and of itself, it didn't really affect me much. Another innocent person that had been wronged, another I couldn't save, another to be avenged—but in the end, just one more nameless face on a list I couldn't have remembered the entirety of if I tried. I mainly felt tired, a part of me that I tried to silence complaining childishly about how I'd _just_ beaten Voldemort and how I deserved a rest and a break before someone else caused problems.

And in the context of the realization I had probably been thrown through _time_ and that I had no way back? It was just a drop in the bucket.

I…I had to see Hogwarts, I thought. Maybe, _maybe_, I was wrong. I'd walk back into its halls and see…see what? God, I hadn't seen Hogwarts in what seemed like years. Hadn't seen anything but the inside of the Department of Mysteries in almost that long. Who was in charge now? The Death Eater's had taken control of it—did they hold it still?

If they were, if I could get home, I'd throw them out _myself_.

But even if I was in the past, it'd still be around, right? Hermione had told me when it had been built at some point, though I hadn't really paid attention at the time. What had she said…the ninth century? The tenth? Something like that. A thousand years ago or so. Even if I was…I couldn't be further back than that, could I? I looked around again, but I couldn't say why—I knew even less about Muggle history then I did about _Magical_ History, which was saying something. If there was some hidden sign of what year it was, I couldn't see it.

Where else could I check? How old was the Ministry? I sort of knew that one, had seen a plaque somewhere—16…16-something. Diagon Alley…I had no clue how old it was, but something about it made me remember something. Olivander's had been around since…a long, long time ago. They _had_ to be somewhere. I had to find some of them, had to…

Do what? What could I do?

I'd figure it out when I got that far.

Another tug on my hand made me focus. The body. Right. I forced myself to concentrate, to take in the details even though I felt like I was in shock and wanted to be somewhere else. One way or another, I probably owed this woman my life, however uncertain I was of the situation I was in. For that, if nothing else, I'd figure out was going on, deal with it, and then I'd go.

I started with the obvious. Dead in the middle of what I assumed was the equivalent of a town square. Put there? Probably—out in the open to let everyone see, scare them. The Death Eaters did that a lot. But it took me a moment to realize the most important detail.

There was no blood. I'd seen my fair share of the stuff, from Death Eaters who liked to get personal with their victims and the monsters in Voldemort's army, but I was more used to seeing the victims of the Killing Curse or Dementors so it hadn't really stood out. But being bloodless wasn't the standard for Muggle murders, was it? I wasn't really an expert on that, to be honest. It could be poison, maybe? Or…strangulation?

Or could it be evidence of magic?

I crouched down, looking for some sign of what happened, and found it after a moment. There was no blood, but there was a _wound_. Teeth marks on the neck. As in, all the teeth, not just fangs like I would have expected—but given the lack of blood and the wound, there was only one thing I could think of, despite having only seen one before.

"Vampire," I stated, hiding any uncertainty I felt. I wasn't sure why, since I knew well that the woman couldn't understand me and might not know what a vampire was if she did. But I guessed it wasn't really about telling her what was happening as much as it was about conveying that I at least knew what was happening.

Rising back to my feet amidst the attention I'd garnered from the crowd, I kept a hold of the woman's hand as I pulled her back towards her house. This was good. If it was vampires, I could probably wait until night fall. Since it seemed only a bit after dawn, that gave me the whole day to try and find what I was looking for.

Now, I just had to somehow explain that to a woman I didn't speak the same language as.

Maybe I could use fucking charades.

**XxXXxX**


	3. Cold-2

**Ice Age**

**Cold 1.2**

In the end, I did, in fact, use fucking charades.

Well, more or less. Specifically, I used transfiguration, animation, and a few other things. Once inside the house, I made a small model version of the town—or what I'd seen of it, at least—and then used a Lumos as a fake Sun, indicating daytime. Snuffing it out, I conjured a few figurines in the village, arranged in cliché monster poses, as well as a villager. Some basic animation was enough to make the monster figurines surround the villager and then I vanished the monsters and knocked the villager over, casting Lumos as a way of indicating the night had ended.

When she nodded in understanding, I moved on quickly—I figured that if this _was_ a vampire problem, she'd probably have noticed that kind of pattern already. I transfigured a new piece—a miniature version of myself, waiting in the town square—before making several more monster pieces around it. Then I enlarged each of the monsters to waist height, paused for a second to let her see them, and systematically reduced them to fine mist with Reductos before lifting an eyebrow to see if she had any questions. Her eyes widened at the display and she nodded again to indicate she understood, paling slightly.

Glancing around, I transfigured a small bag, made it bigger on the inside, and gestured at the thousands of scattered coins on the ground. They flew into the air, gathering into the bag, and I absently lightened it before picking it up, tying it, and handing it to her. That done, I cleaned the small house quickly and moved onto the next order of business, pausing for a moment as I considered how to do it.

I made an arch over the model village and this time created a sliding orb, stylized to look like the Sun. I colored the metal arch blue and black to indicate night and day, before sliding the orb to just after dawn, vanishing the house we were in on the model and transfiguring a miniature version of me and her. Then I animated the mini-me and had it move into town. Moving the orb up a notch, I had it return, raising an eyebrow at her again.

She swallowed, looking nervous, but nodded. Fearing I wouldn't return or…

Frowning at a sudden thought, I remade the walls of the house and made a bunch of villager figures around it. Looking at her inquisitively, I saw her glace at the door with that same nervousness.

Hm. There was a story here, but it wasn't likely I'd be getting it anytime soon, given our current level of communication. The village obviously disliked her but she wanted to protect them—I could respect that, admire it even, but it meant leaving her alone without anything to protect her might not be a good idea.

I gestured to the miniature house and made it glow, before making all the villager figurines move away and go back to their business. Then, I gestured to house itself and cast several Charms to protect it, as I'd often down in the time I'd been on the run. Because I wasn't sure if she'd be able to find her way back if she left, I put a Locking Charm on the door as well, drawing an 'X' over it and shaking my head in an exaggerated no. Pausing a moment to make sure she understood, I smiled in a way I hoped was reassuring, turned on the spot, and finally apparated.

I landed in a small clearing, amidst nothing but grass, hills, and trees. I just looked around silently for a moment, the smile leaving my face, and then just slid to the ground and put my head in my hands. I didn't say anything. I didn't even cry, for all that I suddenly wanted to. I just…sat there.

I'd apparated to Hogwarts. To the Castle itself, not Hogsmeade, something that should have been impossible. I'd tried, specifically to see if anything would stop me, and nothing had. And…there was nothing. No people. No magic. Not even a castle or some buildings.

It was hard to describe how that hit me. It was silly, in a way—I hadn't been to the school in a long, long time—but it hurt me a lot to see it gone. For years, Hogwarts had represented something to me, had been the place I truly wanted to be. It had been the home of the best parts of my life, in a lot of ways—and some of the worst, in fairness, but I didn't hold that against it. I'd escaped from my relatives by leaving for Hogwarts. I'd made my first friends there, found people I could trust and believe in. And I'd found magic there, wonder—not just in the spells I'd been taught but in the world I'd discovered and the people I'd discovered it with.

And now it was gone, as if it had never been. I hadn't thought that I could still be truly hurt after everything I'd been through, but I guess I was wrong. Was it bad that I hurt so much over this when the death of that man in the village had washed over me? It probably meant something was wrong with me, but I didn't really care.

And what hurt the _most_ was that I couldn't even cry over it. I wanted to, oddly, felt I _should_ cry—should sob and weep at what was honestly the saddest moment I'd had in a long time—but I couldn't. I guess that some part of me had expected this, had known the worst would come.

I wasn't sure how long it took me to recover and take my head out of my hands, but I rubbed my face and breathed deeply, trying to think. What would I do about…about…

I tried to decide which problem to focus on and eventually focused on 'myself.' What would I do about—with—myself now? Hogwarts had been the oldest place on my list; if it wasn't there, then the Ministry wouldn't be either. Olivander's ancestors might be around, but I had no idea where to look for them—and if I found him, what would I say? 'Believe it or not sir, I'm from the far future. In fact, I once met your descendent and, uh, talked to him a few times, I guess. Want to be friends?' I barely knew Olivander, much less his however-many-greats grandfather, and we wouldn't share a language besides. And if we did become friends, what then? Maybe he could introduce me to some other wizards, but otherwise, what? It wouldn't really help me in this situation. It wouldn't help me get what I wanted.

Actually, what _did_ I want?

Primarily, I wanted to _go home_. Unfortunately, I had no fucking clue how to do that. I mean, theoretically, maybe the stuff in the Department of Mysteries could do it—it got me here, after all; it should at least be vaguely possible for it to get me back. Problem with that: There was no Department of Mysteries. There wouldn't be for hundreds of years, bare minimum. And while I'd spent enough time in there to have a rough feel for the basics, I'd really been more focused on how to apply it to make Voldemort die, rather than the math and theory. Hermione probably knew but that didn't help me any.

Could I do it myself? I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands, after all. Maybe I could reproduce some of what I'd seen. I'd spent enough time using Time Turners that with years and years of practice I could maybe, _possibly_ make one. Which would…actually be counterproductive, because it'd take me _back_ in time. I had no idea how to go _forward_, much less…however many years forward I'd need to go. I had no idea how to even start making a reverse-time turner, much less one powerful enough to take me that far. Nothing like that had been in the Department, with the closest being the time loop jar. And did I _ever_ not want to be locked in an unending cycle of life and death.

I had no idea where to even _start_ in getting back home.

That left me…what? To live and die here in the past? It may have been ungrateful—I was well aware I'd triggered that trap in the Department of Mysteries with full certainty that it was going to kill me; having survived like this really was a miracle, in a lot of ways—but it seemed cruel that I would live, only to have lost everything I'd ever loved and known. I mean, I could live here, sure—magic was amazing and by the standards of this time period, well, living a life of luxury would be trivial even _if_ I hadn't been able to just make everything I wanted for myself.

But the thing was, I didn't need any of that. My brief experience with the woman who'd rescued me had made it pretty obvious that I could reign over people in this time period like a god, if I wanted to, done what Voldemort had always dreamed of, but the thing was? That didn't even vaguely interest me. I had no desire to hurt innocent people, much less enslave them to my will. And while I figured I could easily hide away in a shack somewhere and while away the years, the idea of being alone that long actually scared me. I wanted to be with people. Hell, I just wanted to _talk_ to people, more than I ever had before, now that I _couldn't_.

Or maybe none of it mattered. The few tales I'd heard of someone travelling further than a few hours into the past had primarily been horrific, which really didn't ease my fears, either—though it did add to my worries at the realization of what I might have done. Hermione had told me a little about it, over the years, but I hadn't really thought about it before acting. Maybe I'd be the next Eloise Mintumble and wasn't _that_ a scary thought. I'd definitely gone back more than five hundred years—probably more than _twice_ that long—so I could only imagine what could happen to me. I mean, it'd handle my problem of getting home, maybe, but then I'd probably collapse into dust upon my return or something.

_If_ someone was there to bring me back. I'd thoroughly annihilated the Ministry and the Department of Mysteries, so I doubted there'd be anyone around to pull me home in the short term. In the long term—well, in the long term, who's to say that my presence here wouldn't rip the fabric of history apart at the seams. Maybe I'd paradox myself out of existence any second now or return to a world where Voldemort had won. Or Merlin, a world where Voldemort was Headmaster and the Golden Trio were the leaders of Dumbledore's Army, a group of dark wizards following their fallen master. Bloody Hell, that'd be just my luck.

Assuming, of course, that anything resembling my time even still existed. I mean, maybe I'd paradoxed my whole future out of existence already. I hadn't done anything huge yet, really, except in regards to my rescuer—but Mintumble had erased people just by _speaking_ to their ancestors. I'd showed that woman plenty enough magic that who knew what I'd done. And if I stopped the vampire that was killing people…if, in the worst case scenario, he'd killed that entire village, and if I stepped in and saved them, the effect that could have on time could be unimaginable. If I was over a thousand years back, that was whoever knew how many generations of people who'd come into existence because their ancestors suddenly survived. What that could do to history…

And to add salt to the wound, I was going to do it even knowing that. Logically, I knew I shouldn't do anything, should let history run its course, but _fuck_ history, I couldn't let innocent people get eaten right in front of me. Even if I knew that it'd probably cause me to be unborn—to not just die but to have _never have existed at all_—I couldn't stand back and let people be murdered if I could do something about it.

It didn't make the realization that I could vanish any moment now any easier, though. It wasn't really the idea of dying, even, it was the fact that I could be annihilated any second for any reason.

I had to focus. The fear was bubbling up now, the understanding of how enormous the consequences could be clashing with the certainty that I would do what I could to help people, even if it cost me my life, but I needed to focus. Even if my doom seemed inevitable, I had to keep going, couldn't give up. I could either assume that I could disappear any moment or assume I might live through it. In the end, I chose to have courage—and if there was anything I'd learned, facing life was harder than facing death in a lot of ways. I'd somehow survived the Department of Mysteries; I had to assume I could survive this.

That still left me with the question of what I was going to do. I figured most…God, did my birthday pass? I just realized I didn't know. But I guessed most people my age probably weren't sure what they were going to do with their lives, but while it sounded kind of whiny in my head, I was pretty sure I was a _little_ different here. I had no fucking clue what to do now.

Deal with the vampires, I guessed. I wasn't really worried about that—not the stopped it part, at least; I didn't think it'd give me much trouble, though the consequences for doing it may well be nightmarish—but it wasn't really a goal. It was a momentary distraction, something to keep me busy for maybe a night and give me nightmares and existential terror afterwards. It was a way to help people and I didn't mind it—would enjoy it even, to be able to save lives. But what was it, really, in the grand scheme of things, besides a rip in time?

It was a start, I thought. The first day of many. The first challenge. The first thing to survive—or not, who knows.

I suddenly understood what Sirius had told me a long time ago—about things that weren't happy thoughts but which could keep you going. This was like that and it was enough to get me to my feet. My throat felt tight and hot, as if I was about to weep, but even now I couldn't force them out, so I look a deep breath instead, shook my head, and glanced at the sky. I was shaking, I realized, before forcing myself to stop.

It hadn't been long since I left and it was still far from dusk; I still had some time to myself. I would…do something. I should avoid people for the moment, I guessed, at least until I got my head on straight. I could check out the old places. The Burrow, Grimmauld Place, the Ministry. I knew they wouldn't be there—I was sure of it now. But I wanted to…_had_ to see it for myself. So I could…mourn? Kind of but not really. I couldn't think of a better word, though. I had to let it sink in that this was real and I wanted to be alone for a while to do it.

When I went back to my rescuer, I'd make sure I looked confident, composed, unflappable—the sure and certain wizard, there to slay the monsters. For now though, I was just Harry Potter and I felt like shit and was scared and needed to grieve.

**XxXXxX**


End file.
